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Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Sayings from the Wisdom of Loki

The Wisdom of Loki has become one of the cornerstone concepts of the book I'm writing, "War Stories from Wanderhaven." In the back of my mind, I picture it as a kind of anti-Bible, a justification for all kinds of nastiness and base revolutionary acts.

After reading about Loki some over the weekend, I've started thinking of him less as a simple trouble-maker and more as the ancient Norse version of Karl Marx. He's a guy who doesn't have a stake in the established order, who wants to overturn everything and ultimately winds up fighting on the wrong side of Ragnarok.

Anyway, I find myself trying to draft pieces of Loki's "Wisdom" at odd hours. Pretty much anytime I have an antisocial thought, I try to jot it down for potential future use.

This first one comes from Kelly Sue DeConnick via the current issue of AvengersAssemble, which was easily my favorite issue of the series thus far and probably the best thing I've seen from DeConnick in general. I really loved its depiction of AIM.

"Men speak of fate, of the will of the gods, as if the gods have a care for the fates of men...

"It is only the absence of their gods which gives men the single thing they have that is worth possessing. Only in the absence of fate do men have free will."

This next one is more Marxist. It's appropriate for a homeless waif from Wanderhaven's docks, though.

"Every man desires a few basic necessities: home and hearth, willing wife, food for his children. Therefore, if you give a man property, you also give him a stake in the fate of society at large. But if you take from a man all that he owns, he no longer has reason not to burn down your house and take all that you own."